that was pretty stupid
by GryfoTheGreat
Summary: She's pretty sure that sitting in your co-worker's lap is a no-no. (Or: Athena makes dumb decisions, and Apollo helps.)


**Title:** that was pretty stupid**  
Fandom: **Ace Attorney, Gyakuten Saiban  
**Rating:** T  
**Characters:** Athena Cykes, Apollo Justice, Justicykes  
**Summary:** She's pretty sure that sitting in your co-worker's lap is a no-no. (Or: Athena makes dumb decisions, and Apollo helps.)  
**Notes:** I told myself I wouldn't ship these two, but I'm trash, so... I know chair makeouts are 300% cliché but I just _do not care_. Also Athena is ripped. THIS IS CANON.

* * *

Athena has a confession.

She has never worked anywhere before she came to the Wright Anything Agency. No summer jobs, no volunteering, no part-time work. Her CV is void of any referees. Therefore, she has little to no experience of idea of how one is supposed to treat their co-workers.

Trucy's fine; she's like a little sister, even though Athena is a mere two years her senior. Boss is an easy one too; like an awesome teacher who occasionally falls asleep on his books and leaves crucial paperwork in inconvenient places. Apollo is a little harder to pin down, which seems to be the norm rather than the exception with her senior. He's older than her, so she tries to treat him respectfully, except he's shorter than her when she's wearing heels, and also he says really dumb stuff that just _needs_ to be made fun of.

But she's pretty sure that sitting in your co-worker's lap is a no-no.

The chair creaks slightly under their combined weight, and she can hear Apollo's heart breaking the cardiac speed limit. The toes of her boots drag along the hardwood floor, and she's never been so grateful in her life for Mr. Wright's tendency to bail out of the office early on Thursdays to watch Steel Samurai: Reinforced.

Okay. If her years of study of psychology taught her anything, it's that taking a deep breath is a good idea. She inhales (and in doing so her chest brushes against Apollo's and she is able to draw the conclusion that he must frequent a gym somewhere), and decides to assess her situation.

She thinks she was complaining at Apollo about the inferior quality of her spinny chair.

("I was here first," Apollo said, scribbling on a document of some sort. "Therefore, my swivel chair is better. Ya snooze, ya lose."

"That is discrimination! Also, they're spinny chairs. Only people over 40 call them swivel chairs." She spun around to demonstrate her point, but stopped abruptly when her chair began to creak alarmingly.

"Look, that's why your chair is worse. You treat it like a merry-go-round." He flipped the page over in an obnoxiously loud fashion, but then again, one could describe everything Apollo did like that.

"See, and you don't! You're neglecting its God-given talents! What else are you supposed to use it for?" She scooted her chair over, ignoring the scraping sound its wheels made against the floor.

"Sitting?" At least he had turned around to face her. Athena always hated it when Blackquill turned his back to her in court, and this was much the same. At least the bags under Apollo's eyes weren't as bad as Blackquill's.

"That is boring and you are boring." She was within reaching distance of his chair; she could give it a good push and see if he'd fall out.

"Slander," he said, head listing sideways. His eyes are veiled by his eyelashes, which were stupidly thick. Athena had the curse of all redheads; thin, gingery eyelashes. Apollo had eyelashes like either a calf or some supermodel.

"Don't forget larceny!" She grabbed his chair in an attempt to throw him out of it so she could claim it, but Apollo braced himself with more force than she expected. The chair sailed backwards, she tumbled forwards, into-)

"Scheisse!" The word hisses out from between her teeth. She can't get off him; they've landed in such a way that if she moves, he'll fall straight off, and she is still conscious of his newly healed burns.

"I-I understood that." His voice is a little higher than usual.

Her first instinct is to shift awkwardly, which is definitely a bad idea. Apollo flushes a deeper shade of red, and his grip on the armrests tightens. She has no idea when or why she decided that including a mini-skirt in her uniform was a good idea. Pants are good. She would like pants right now because her stockings are slipping down and she can't pull them up because Apollo might faint.

To his credit, he's trying to be a gentleman; his eyes are looking anywhere but her, and he's straining away for her, his knuckles white as they grip the chair. But, for some reason, she would rather him be ungentlemanly. It's a traitorous thought at the back of her mind, from the part that doesn't think love is kinda dumb, the part that wants Apollo to look at her, to let go of the armrests and touch her bare thighs.

She silences that thought as best she can; a dissenting mind is an unstable one, and this situation is unstable enough as it is. She needs to steady herself first; silently apologizing to Apollo, she leans forward and braces her hands on the desk behind him. In hindsight, that was rather stupid; now she's so close to Apollo that he has no choice but to look at her.

"Athena?" Apollo's strained voice is a mix of conflicting emotions, a melody of anger and hesitance and awkwardness with a bass-line of what she thinks (hopes) is joy. "Can you...?"

"Sorry!"She jolts backwards, and the chair sways. He lets out a tiny squeak. "I'm so sorry, Apollo, I can't think-!" Aaaand she's said too much. He's a lawyer, he's trained to question people. He won't let that one go. She'll just have to head him off first.

"You and me both," he mumbles. She hears pain in his voice and her eyes fasten on his hands on the arms.

She does something really colossally dumb; she puts her hand over Apollo's and unclenches his fingers, one by one, her thumb digging into the skin beneath his bracelet. His breathing hitches. When his hands are free she takes them loosely so as not to irritate the ridges of burn tissue on the backs of his hands.

"Are you uncomfortable?" she asks, concentrating her gaze on his knuckles. She can feel the weight of his pin-sharp eyes on her, tracking every twitch of her fingers and quirk of her mouth.

"Yes, and no." The answer is short and clipped, but the fear and most of the anger has leaked out of him.

"That's a contradiction," she tells him, grinning.

He lets out a laugh -short, breathless- and his fingers flex around hers. "I, uh... I'm unconformable because this chair is small and because you're kinda heavy. Muscle mass, I guess." She lets out a 'tch!' and digs her elbow into the nearest part of him- his thigh, as it turns out. He shakes his head. "But I'm comfortable because it's... um. You."

"Me?"

"Did I stutter?" The corner of his mouth turns up slightly. He knows what's coming.

"Breakfast Club!" she bursts out. He laughs, and she feels it in her legs.

"So, umm..." she starts again. "You're comfortable because I'm in your lap?"

He nods slightly. "I owe Klavier... he said you'd be on my, uh-" He coughs and cuts himself off, red blush returning to his cheeks. "I retract that statement."

Her brain is doing this thing where it stops, cognitive functions slowing down, because if she's getting what he's saying, behind all the mumbling and the nervousness...

"CONFESS!" Widget squeaks, and Athena shocks backward, her necklace's outburst catching her by surprise, and Apollo grabs her waist to stop her from falling straight off.

Suddenly, he is very, very close, and it occurs to her how wide his hands are around her waist. He has a scar below his left eyebrow, almost invisible.

"Screw it," Apollo mutters. His hands tighten, and a strange burst of adrenaline spikes through her -fight or flight, fight or flight?- and she decides to fight.

So she kisses him first.

He is shocked at first, unmoving, but slowly he begins to respond. He is hesitant, careful, but Athena doesn't want that, so she presses harder, and in response he does too. She can feel the beginnings of bruises on her lips, and thinks _'Good.'_

She runs her hands through his hair, ruining it as best she can; he makes an annoyed sound into her lips and tugs on her ponytail. His hands drop to her shoulders, under the collar of her jacket, and he pushes it off her shoulders. It slides down to her elbows, and she shrugs it off irritatedly. She won't be beaten; she can do better than him. She pulls away, ignoring his whine of protest. She's only seen this in love films, only read it in teen novels, but Apollo touches his neck sometimes when he's worried; he must be slightly sensitive there.

She is right; the moment her lips brush against his neck, his breathing accelerates, hands heavy on her waist. She pushes his chin back to get a better angle, and squirms slightly, her other hand tangled in his tie for balance.

"A-Athena!" She is crushed against him, legs wrapped around the back of the chair. His hands drop to her thighs, where her stockings have fallen even further, and rest on pale, muscled skin. She gasps, pulls away for his neck, and he kisses her again, harder this time, and his fingers curl into the hem of her stockings to pull them down.

This is too much; the press of his chest against hers (yes, he most definitely goes to a gym), his gasps, the cool of his bracelet against her leg is overloading her. Her hips buck against his, completely unconscious, and Apollo pulls away suddenly, hands leaving her legs to press against her shoulders. Widget casts a green glare on them, revealing the red marks on Apollo's neck.

In the five seconds that follow, Athena thinks several things. One is that she will get fired for sure, another is that she _needs_ him to touch her again, third is that _shit_, the chair-

It collapses beneath them, and they topple out in a topsy-turvy mess of white shirts and flailing legs. She lands half-on him, leg thrown over his waist, a piece of plastic digging into her hip.

"Fuck," Apollo says finally, kicking away a chair leg.

"My sentiments exactly," she sighs, rolling off him.

"So, did we just-"

"Make out on your chair and break it? Yup."

He groans, hand landing on his face. "I now owe both Klavier and Ema."

"Junie's gonna kill me, and I will deserve it."

"Wait..." Apollo sits up. "Was that your first kiss?"

Resolutely, she keeps her mouth shut.

He moves to hover over her. "That was your first kiss. I took your first kiss." He looks strangely pleased.

"I graduated when I was seventeen, okay? I didn't have much time for kissing!" She is not blushing, she is not blushing-

Apollo smiles, and says; "Well, you have plenty of time now." He leans down and kisses her again, but this time it is gentler, softer, without the panic of the previous one. She moves with him, reaching a hand up to hang around his neck, one bare leg hooking over his waist.

When he moves away, he gets to his feet, and pulls her up. She tugs her stockings up, and he looks away as she does so.

"You're the one who pulled them down. No need to look away," she says as she locates her jacket in the ruins of the desk chair.

"I did? Did I take your jacket off as well?" His voice is higher again.

"You're a fast mover," she confirms as she pulls her jacket on. "But I think I ruined your shirt, so..."

He looks down; sure enough, his tie is pulled taut, and the top button of his shirt is missing. He buries his face in his hands.

"You owe me a shirt and a chair," he says, words muffled.

She huffs as she darts into the closet. "Chivalry is dead." She returns with a black bin bag

"I'm no knight," he responds, taking the bag and dumping pieces of shattered plastic into it.

She should help him, but she doesn't. I'm no knight, he said; well, she's no princess. She doesn't need someone perfect, she doesn't need someone to bring her flaws into stark relief. She needs Apollo, she needs him and his sarcasm and his broken edges and his occasional flashes of inspiration and his leaps of logic and his solidity, his presence, his help, and just maybe he needs her too.

So she kneels down beside him in silence to help, and after they're done, as they're exchanging their goodbyes, she kisses his cheek. It's quick and light but it leaves him with a strange soft smile, and she watches him walk away until he vanishes from sight.

"THAT WAS DUMB," Widget says.

"Yeah," Athena agrees, "but it was pretty smart of me too."


End file.
